


brains is just another word for dick

by tysonrunningfox



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: F/M, HTTYD3 Spoilers, I don't know what anyone wanted, httyd3, people write stuff like this, snalka, there are consequences to creative decisions, you kill her husband, you make her call him smart instead of dismissing him, you make me watch one half of my otp cry at the wedding of another half to another man, you make snotlout flirt with her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-21 23:51:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17652059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tysonrunningfox/pseuds/tysonrunningfox
Summary: Httyd3 spoilers.  I just created the Snotlout Jorgenson/Valka tag on this website.  This is snalka smut.  That's exactly what it is.





	brains is just another word for dick

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately, I like it, it started as spite and a dumb joke and I accidentally made a whole ass relationship dynamic. 
> 
> Also, you all need to be aware of the uncomfortable fact that I wrote this in comic sans.

The days that Stoick should feel closest, he often feels farthest away.  Valka can see how Hiccup misses his father in his face, hear it in his voice when he proposes a toast and Astrid holds his hand, coaching him through it with unusually gentle persistence.  She can see the hole in the crowd, the gap in their lives that will never quite be filled, but today, of all days, it doesn’t need filling.  Maybe it’s because she lived with the gap longer than she ever did with the man himself or because the image of Stoick in her mind looks more and more like Hiccup every day, but today the gap is welcome. Unexcused.  Accepted and acknowledged as an always invited and honorable guest. 

Something Valka first noticed about weddings when she was a girl on the periphery, trying to understand her fellow Vikings who never really felt like fellows, is that weddings make everyone but two lonely.  Well, maybe not everyone.  Fishlegs and Ruffnut seem to be figuring out a solution if the girl’s smile is any indication as she drags him towards the back door of the hastily constructed hall.  The new walls block the draft better than the old walls on Berk, where the wood had shrunk enough in years of freezing winters to let drafts through when the wind howled, and Valka tries to feel homesick only the loneliness of the crowd sinks in. 

Gaps don’t make great company. 

The gap kept her human when she was surrounded by dragons, but now she’s wrestling with how to stay dragon when surrounded by humans.  Maybe that’s why she’s drawn to the riders more than people her own age.  She thinks about approaching Eret in particular, because like her he must be pretending to miss a place he barely knew, but their past conflict complicates their relationship when Hiccup isn’t cheerfully acting as a buffer.  Tuffnut has proven surprisingly interesting to talk to, if a bit spastic and distractible, but Valka can’t say she’s in the mood for conversation. 

There’s a freedom she doesn’t want to try to put into words to seeing her son grown and married, a woman she trusts beside him on Berk’s throne.  And as sweetly bitter as Cloudjumper’s absence is, it compounds the unleashed feeling of her jobs in life being complete.  The dragons are safe, her son is taken care of and onto the next step in his life, and the lack of weight on her shoulders is giving her time to think about things that she hasn’t in years.  Things she doesn’t want to talk about, things she doesn’t have an audience or direction for. 

“Time for a refill?”  Snotlout appears on her right, holding two mugs of mead.  If he hadn’t suggested otherwise, she’d assume they’re both his, as he’s apparently drunk enough that he doesn’t even try to be surreptitious about the way he’s staring at her chest. 

“I haven’t had a first,” Valka should discourage him, she knows that.  He’s as subtle as a monstrous nightmare even sober, of course she noticed the moment he stopped claiming her instructions as his own and started praising her for them and providing backup she sometimes needed to keep the twins in line. 

She should have discouraged it then, but when he’s focused, he’s actually fairly competent and maybe there’s part of her that doesn’t mind being the object of his focus.  She’s no spring chicken, and maybe more aware of it than she would have been if she’d seen the changes slowly, if her reflection hadn’t had the chance to age twenty years between glancing at it.  She was stunned when she first noticed Snotlout looking at her the way he does Astrid and Ruffnut when he thinks they won’t catch him, and maybe it served as sort of a balm to help her accept the wrinkles she now sees in the mirror. 

“Well, you’re behind then.”  He holds one mug out a little more forcefully, bumping it against her hand as he takes a healthy gulp from the other.  His cheeks are red and eyes glassy with something more than his tears at the ceremony.  “Come on, everyone’s pitching in, we didn’t haul those barrels of mead up here by hand just to leave any behind and haul it back down.” 

“The old ‘everyone’s doing it’ reasoning,” Valka shakes her head, “peer pressure can be hard to put on someone old enough to be your mother.” 

He sets his mug down and takes her hand in his, wrapping it firmly around the drink that he bought her, and for a second, she wonders who she was reminding. 

“You are not my mom.”  He seems satisfied when she takes a small sip of the mead.  These are the last casks from Berk, just another thing changing to make room for a new future.  “You are way too hot for me to think of as a mom.” 

There’s a vulnerability to his boldness that is nothing like his father.  It’s assertive as a defense, ensuring that when he’s inevitably rebuffed, the blow hits center of mass and is less likely to send him teetering. 

“You’re drunk, Snotlout.”  She knows when she gives him a chance to back out that he won’t, it’s not in his nature to step away from embarrassment or obvious defeat. 

“Hot and observant,” he takes another drink and leans on the edge of the table, shaking his head.  His helmet is crooked and so is the fur on his shoulders, tugging his shirt sideways and revealing even more of his chest than normal. “Does anything get by you?” 

No one has ever called Valka hot before, as far as she knows.  It’s a childish word, a temporary concept wielded by silly boys chasing things they don’t understand.  But for some reason, it hits Valka in a way she thought nothing ever would again, ever since the gap became a permanent resident, but it’s different too. 

Snotlout is a different shape than the gap.  He doesn’t eclipse part of it, leaving an empty border more obvious than the gap itself.  He doesn’t have anything to do with it.  He’s here in the now, where her son is grown and the dragons are safe and he’s looking at her like she has enough time left in this world to think about other gaps.  About fulfilling needs she’s only recently had time or space to recognize, let alone frame in the present. 

“Not much does, I saw Ruffnut leaving with Fishlegs a few minutes ago, I assume that’s why you’re feeling the pressure to pair off.” 

“Valka, can I call you Valka?”  He rolls his eyes, flexing his crossed arms in a way Valka is shocked to find herself noticing. 

“I don’t see what else you’d call me.” 

“Babe, I literally always feel the pressure to get off.”  He drunkenly stumbles into the mistake and Valka laughs. “I mean pair off.” 

“You don’t mean both?”  She doesn’t know why she asks it, why she teases him, why it’s light and victorious when his blush travels over his jaw and down his neck. Mostly, she doesn’t know why after all these years of making every decision she did for a cause she believed in more than anything, this is the thing easy to separate and act on. 

Maybe it’s just been so long and maybe she couldn’t help but notice him while he noticed her. 

“I do, but I only meant to tell you half of it.” He shakes his head and she has a sudden urge to fix his helmet or take it off of his head and when she weighs it against all of the things she no longer has to do or think about, there’s really no reason not to.  

“Well, I’m glad to say that’s a pressure I haven’t aged out of.”  Valka raises an eyebrow, watching confusion cross his face in waves before taking up permanent roost in his furrowed eyebrows.  “Well, Snotlout, did I make a mistake identifying you as the brains of the operation?” 

Valka has never strayed away from the unexpected, from swerving when everyone thought she should stay straight, and Snotlout’s baldly stunned expression is only the beginning of her reward. 

“I mean, maybe, since you’re drooling on my brawn,” his tone is wrong, stunned.  Young and eager and too naïve to appreciate the value of backing off when he’s ahead. 

“From the look of you, I’m betting there’s at least one empty mead cask over there to put back into storage, how about you put that brawn to some use?” 

“Mead cask?”  He frowns, half-finished mead forgotten, stunned expression infused with something else as she stands up and his eyes trace her up and down. 

Trace is wrong.  It’s a grab, a shove, a frantic, handsy gaze with no grace behind it. 

“I’m sure we’ll find a use for the empties, we should store them.” 

Snotlout follows like a terror promised a treat, but even the now baseless comparison is wrong.  He is all Nightmare, loud and almost clumsy with his self announcement, arms flexing against the leather cuffs around his wrists as he helps her lift the only empty mead cask and carry it towards the storage shed out back. It’s an excuse, an alibi in case Eret gets curious or Tuffnut sees them slipping out, a guarantee that he’ll avoid being asked for help rather than approach them. 

It’s not that she feels the need to keep this secret, it’s a need to keep this simple, to make one decision, not many. 

“Here,” he grunts in the shed when they set down the barrel, tilting it onto an edge and rolling it to stand vertical in the far corner.  The shed is more shoddily build than the new hall, scraps of moonlight sneaking in through the slats and projecting lines of bluish dusk on the floor.  There are no ghosts in this building, on this island, in the tense, confused, eager set of Snotlout’s shoulders as he looks up at her. 

She shuts the door, nudging a spare plank of wood under it to lock it well enough for drunk Vikings to leave clean up until tomorrow, and takes Snotlout’s crooked helmet from his head.  It clangs when she drops it on the floor, lighting the tension she let build with a cool, racing spark as she rests her hands on his shoulders and kisses him. 

He grabs, just how she thought he would, clumsy and graceless and warm, hands rasping against the rough wool of her dress with dragon riding calluses that haven’t faded yet.  He nearly trips over her feet when he pushes her back, the lip of the barrel introducing itself to the back of her legs.  She sits because it brings her down to his height and when her knees fall open around his hips, it feels natural, not overdue but right on time, the warmth from his palms spreading inward and flaring in her chest. 

His jawline is confident when she traces it on the way to tangling her hand in his hair, but his voice shakes when he breaks the kiss to trail hot, urgent lips along her neck. 

“Gods, you’re so hot.”  He mutters into her shoulder, clumsy hands sliding down her back to pull her closer, her leg wrapping reflexively around his hips when her seat teeters on the edge of the barrel.  He swears a little too loud, the ghost of his teeth against her neck as his hips twitch forward, pressing an obvious bulge in his pants against her inner thigh. 

And he’s so close, close in a way she struggles to get with other people.  Close in a quiet, uncomplicated way that leaves no room for thought, only warmth and a long quieted throb of arousal between her legs when she finds the hem of his shirt and slides her hand underneath.  His stomach twitches at the contact, and his hand moves to her chest squeezing greedily through layers of wool and linen that all suddenly feel too heavy. 

He tastes like mead and moans into her mouth when she tweaks his nipple, shivering from something other than the cool winter air as his chest starts to sweat, sticking to his shirt.  There’s a thrumming between her legs now, a persistent sort of climb that jolts up a notch when he grinds against her, palming at her chest and kissing her like it’s a wrestling match he doesn’t know if he should try and win. 

She pushes his shirt up, bending to kiss the center of his chest as he frees his arms and drops his clothes on the floor. And she doesn’t think when she reaches for his pants, because he looks at her like she’s young and touches her like she still has something to give even if it’ll look different than anything before. 

Her shirt tears at the collar when he jerks it up too quickly, pulling away just long enough for his unfastened pants to fall to his knees.  Then his hands are working her bindings up, shaking, impatient, as she fidgets out of her own pants. 

“I see you brought the brawn, I hope you can find the brains again,” she teases, surprised by the husky tone of her own voice, the way her breath quickens when she takes one of his hands and slides it down her stomach, between her legs.  It’s impossibly warm against her, shaking and as eager as his face as he fumbles to slip a blunt, careful finger inside of her. 

“Brains?  What would I do with that now?”  He ducks his head, kissing a nipple he managed to free from her bindings, tongue darting out as she arches into the sensation, the throbbing flame between her legs stoked by a second slow moving finger beside the first. 

“You seem to be managing.”  She grabs the length that’s dragging distractedly across her thigh and he jumps, telling himself to calm down under his breath as she strokes.  “Don’t calm down now, it’s too late for that.” 

“So hot,” he groans, forehead heavy on her shoulder as he lines takes his hand away from her and helps her line him up, arms shaking as he hooks one of her legs over his elbow and her other heel hooks behind his leg as he slides in. 

There’s no ceremony to it, no tact, no weight to the quick, cloying drag of his first stroke, almost too hard.  It shoves a moan out of her and she digs her fingernails into his shoulders, holding on as his motion starts rocking the time warped barrel. 

His kisses are distracted and clumsy, one hand palming her chest and the other holding her leg up, the angle deeper as the newly cut board of the wall bites a barely noticed splinter into her upper back. His rhythm stutters and he readjusts his grip, pulling her onto him as much as he pushes in. 

“Are you—you know?”  He looks older when he’s earnest, surely concerned about gloating rights as well as making her feel good, and she snakes a hand between them to rub the sensitive apex of her throbbing core.  “Oh Gods, so you’re going to get off?” 

“Just move.” 

He doesn’t need a follow up order, this time, he just nods and struggles to restart his rhythm, face intense in the spare slits of light as he anchors his hand on her waist and holds her still. She should care how young he is, but she met him fully formed, close to the age she still feels in her minds eye. That and she can’t care about anything but the rising pressure, the toe-curling swirl of heat and persistent, percussive pleasure of his hips meeting hers. 

And there’s something about how hard he’s trying, how he’s working for her when she’s spent decades in pursuit of something now successful.  She feels like a cause worth shaking for and her fingers move faster as she falls apart, clinging one handed to his slick back. 

He follows not long after, grip too tight on her leg and hip, grunting as his hips still and the hush lets the sounds of the dwindling feast intermingle with their still harsh breathing. 

“So—“

“If you say so hot again, I’ll disagree with you.” Valka breathes carefully, the stress of the old decisions and troubles fading into the relaxed thrum at the start of something new and unencumbered. 

There are many gaps now, most winged, some not, but there are other things too.  There are more causes to find. 

“But if I don’t say it?” 

“I knew you were smart.” 

 


End file.
